The French & Indian War

One of the major theaters of the Seven Years' War was in North America. France had two major North American colonies collectively called "New France:" Canada, located in the north along the St. Lawrence River, and Louisiana, located in the Great Plains region. Britain had thirteen: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Both sides fought alongside Native American tribes, who were largely motivated by which group of Europeans they thought would produce a better outcome; in particular, the Iroquois Confederacy, which included groups like the Mohawk and Seneca, fought alongside the British colonists, while the French were aided by Canadian and plains people such as the Ottawa, Algonquin, and Wabanaki. Though varied in culture, many musical similarities exist across Native American groups, including the use of drums, rattles, shakers, call-and-response technique, and ritual dancing.

The British colonists (including a young lieutenant named George Washington) and their allies far outnumbered the French and theirs, and the war was a decisive British victory. Canada and the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River were ceded to Britain, and a cash-strapped France sold the rest of Louisiana to Spain. Though victorious, many of the American colonists were not happy with how the British government ran the war, and even less happy with their decision to make the colonists cover most of its cost. This led to a period of escalating tension between Britain's American colonies and the government in London.